CVE-2016-2781

chroot in GNU coreutils, when used with --userspec, allows local users to escape to the parent session via a crafted TIOCSTI ioctl call, which pushes characters to the terminal's input buffer.

Published: 2017-02-07 Last update: 2026-05-13 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2016-2781 is rated Low Risk (25.2/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.07%). Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2016-2781

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2025-03-17 0.04% 0.07% +0.03%
2 2023-03-07 0.89% 0.04% -0.85%
3 2022-02-04 — 0.89% —

Full EPSS history (3 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2016-2781

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.6 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 1.5 2.7 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0
6.5 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 2.0 4.0 [email protected]
2.1 2.0 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 3.9 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2016-2781

OS Trackers for CVE-2016-2781

vendor priority summary link
alpine — CVE-2016-2781: 1 source package rows (coreutils); 28 state rows across 6 repos (3.19-main, 3.20-main, 3.21-main, 3.22-main, 3.23-main, edge-main); fixed 0, open 28. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2016-2781
debian low CVE-2016-2781 low priority: Debian including 1 source packages (coreutils), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 3, open 2. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2016-2781
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2016-2781
ubuntu low CVE-2016-2781 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (coreutils), 24 status rows across 24 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, precise, questing, trusty, upstream, wily, xenial, yakkety, zesty): ignored 23, needed 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2016-2781

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2016-2781

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
gnu coreutils — cpe:2.3:a:gnu:coreutils:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2016-2781

cvelogic Threat Intelligence